


Raven

by CaseyM



Series: Raven Encounters [1]
Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst with a Happy Ending, Blow Jobs, Established Relationship, M/M, Major Character Injury, Major borrowing from Highlander mythology but not a cross-over, Male Slash, Multi, Oral Sex, Slash, Supernatural Elements, Threesome, Threesome - M/F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-23
Updated: 2013-03-22
Packaged: 2017-12-06 04:33:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 18,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/731473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaseyM/pseuds/CaseyM
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“If you had your choice, Mr. Reese,” Finch asked, “how would you like to die?”</p>
<p>Finch shares his biggest secret and introduces Reese to his oldest friend.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Mr. Reese?”

John straightened, brushed off his sleeves and then the body of his jacket. “I’m alright, Finch.”

There was a discernable pause. “Are you sure?”

Reese grinned ruefully at the skepticism in his partner’s voice. “I’m all in one piece, anyhow.” He caught his breath and looked around the alley. Two men writhing, grasping their legs. Neither was crawling toward his gun. The third one, the one who’d gotten up when he should have stayed down, was dead. “Tell me there’s no new Number yet.”

“Not yet.”

“I’m going home.”

“Alright.”

“You should join me.”

Only long experience let him hear the tiny smile in his partner’s voice. “Alright.”

“You’re so easy, Finch.”

 ***

By the time he got back to the loft, his muscles had started to set up. Reese kicked off his shoes at the door, dropped his jacket on the couch, walked directly down to the bathroom and stripped off the rest of his clothes. He let the shower run until it was very hot, then stepped in. He closed his eyes and leaned against the wall, let the water steam against him. Let it work on the muscles.

“I am getting too old for this,” he groaned.

The hot water would, as far as Reese could tell, never run out. When he got bored with standing under the stream, he scrubbed off quickly, rinsed, and shut off the water. “Finch?” he called before he even slid the shower door back.

“I’m here,” Finch answered immediately.

Reese grinned and opened the door. Harold was standing the in the middle of the bathroom, in his shirtsleeves, glowing slightly with sweat from the steam, holding out a white towel.

“How bad is it?” Finch asked.

John took the towel. “Nothing needs stitching,” he reported.

“That’s something, I suppose.”

As he dried off, Reese was very aware that Finch was watching him, examining him. Cataloging the new bruises and contusions on his naked skin. And checking, too, for any injury that actually did require stitching. He checked the corners of his partner’s mouth. They turned down, but just a little. Evidently he’d passed inspection. “I’m fine, Harold.”

“Hmm.”

Reese dropped the towel and grasped both of Finch’s upper arms. His hands were still damp; they left faint prints on the sky blue cotton. He bent and caught Harold’s frowning mouth with his own. The man’s lips parted, as much in exasperation as acceptance. John darted his tongue between his teeth, exploring the familiar. Enticing.

Harold drew back, just a little. “I am no longer convinced, Mr. Reese, that your sexual prowess is evidence that you are not, in fact, badly injured.”

John grinned. Give some men a blowjob before you tell them you’ve cracked four ribs and they just never let you live it down. He caught Harold’s hands, pressed them against his bare sides. “See?” he invited. “Nothing broken. Promise.”

Finch squeezed firmly, his eyes fixed on John’s. His hands slid lower, to his hips. “That doesn’t mean you’re not injured elsewhere.”

“You’re welcome to check.”

“An excellent suggestion.”

 ***

His body knew Harold’s hands. His skin reveled in their touch. Reese felt the tension draining out of him as those warm familiar hands smoothed over his shoulders and back. It wasn’t precisely a massage, but the touch was firm, lingering. Pleasant. He smiled into the pillow as Finch examined one arm and then the other. The man was very detail-oriented, in this as in all things. The fingers brushed over his bruised knuckles. The small warm hands returned to his back, ran down across his ass, focused on his right thigh. They worked down to his calf, his ankle, his foot. Then back up and down his left leg.

“Satisfied?” he murmured.

“Half-satisfied,” Finch answered brusquely. “Other side, please.”

Reese rolled over lazily. “Take your clothes off.”

“We’ll see.” The sharp blue eyes caught the deepening bruise on his right shoulder. Finch tsk’d and brushed his fingers over it. Then he pressed his fingertips deeper. Reese grunted, and the pressure relented.

“Just a bruise,” he promised.

Finch made an unhappy noise, then leaned and pressed his lips to the wound. He sat up and continued his examination of John’s body. It was an odd combination of clinical and personal. John watched him, his eyes half-closed. He liked the attention. The feeling that he was treasured.

Harold’s hands on his thighs made his cock begin to fill. Harold’s thumb locating another fresh bruise caused him to wince. “It’s nothing,” he said again.

Finch’s fingers circled the bruise gently. “Two inches higher and it would have been something more than nothing, I think.” He bent slowly to kiss this wound, too. His cheek brushed against John’s balls.

He wasn’t wrong, John thought. The man had been trying to kick him in the sack. He couldn’t blame him, really. Never fight fair when you’re fighting for his life.

The guy had lost, first the fight and then his life.

“Clothes, Finch,” he said, losing patience. The bad guy was dead; Reese was alive. Suddenly the caring touches that were not quite foreplay irritated him. He wasn’t precious, nor breakable. He was alive. He wanted to feel it.

Harold heard the change in his voice, and he did not argue. He slid awkwardly off the bed and unbuttoned his vest. John put his hand on his own cock and stroked it idly, watching. The vest went away, then the shirt. The shoes, the belt. All arranged neatly over the back of the chair. Then Finch turned off the bedside lamp and plunged the loft into darkness.

It wasn’t really dark, of course. The city glittered just outside the wall of windows, creating a comfortable twilight. John watched his partner slip off the rest of his clothes. Harold walked around the foot of the bed and pulled the covers up over both of them as he climbed in. Reese waited until he’d put his glasses on the bedside table, then grabbed him and yanked him close. Among other things, in the past months, he’d learned this: Finch didn’t care to be coddled any more than he did. He was careful, always, of his partner’s hip and neck, but if his reactions were any indication – and Reese was very good at reading reactions accurately – Harold wasn’t nearly as fragile as he sometimes appeared to be.

There, finally, in the half-dark, their bare skin touching, their bodies together from shoulder to toe, _finally_ John felt some of the tension release from his mind as another, sweeter tension rose in his body. It had been an awful day, a bad fight that could have gotten worse, but he was here now, safe, tangled in his lover’s arms and legs. Their cocks were side by side, pressed between their bodies, both growing erect. He knew the shape of Finch’s as well as he knew his own now. Knew its weight, its width. Its folds and creases. Its sensitive spots, its responses. Its scent. Its taste. He groaned from the sheer pleasure of knowing, and put his mouth on Harold’s, kissing him long and deep. He knew this too, this mouth. The taste and the teeth. The tongue, as quick as Harold’s wit. The attack and the surrender.

The excitement of newness had worn off their lovemaking, but it had been replaced by the bliss of _knowing_.

The kiss went on. Harold’s hands moved over his back, and his hips shifted gently, giving a little room for their stiff cocks between them. His lips left John’s, then, trailed over his chin and down his neck. They hovered in the hollow of his throat for a moment, and then Harold shifted again, to move down his chest. The _knowing_ returned; if he let him continue, Finch’s talented mouth would wrap itself around his cock. The nimble tongue, those lips that could be soft and firm at the same time, the giving …

“Not tonight,” he said softly.

Harold paused, then move back up and kissed his lips again. “You’re the battered one,” he murmured indulgently. “It’s your call.”

John laughed. “I’m not that battered, I promise.” He ran his fingers through Harold’s short hair. He never stopped being surprised by how soft it was; it looked like the spikes should be, well, spiky, but they weren’t at all. “I just want to kiss you.” He did, he realized as he spoke. He wanted to kiss him and whisper to him, to share his breath and look into his eyes, to taste the lingering drops of green tea and sugar.

“Mmmmmmm,” Harold answered, between kisses. He rolled his hips again. “I don’t think that’s _all_ you want.”

Reese groaned again as his partner’s hand closed around his cock. The grasp was sure, confident; a firm circle around the base, loosening slightly as it slid towards the crown. A slightly rough palm sliding over the tip. Fingertips tracing around the ridge. He felt his eyes roll back in pleasure. “Yes,” he groaned again. “Like that.”

Finch’s lips twitched in a little smile against his. He shifted again, giving himself room to work between their bodies. His tongue swept through John’s mouth and then danced, in perfect synchronization with his fingertips. A long stroke of the hand matched a long stroke of the tongue. Reese felt his arousal growing sharply.

Sometimes they took their time with this. Sometimes they spent hours just kissing and stroking and nuzzling, in no particular hurry to reach their destination. But other times, nights like this, when he was fresh from a fight, when the smell of gunpowder still whispered under the scent of soap and hot water on his skin, when the noise of the gunfire still numbed his ears, when the adrenalin still lingered in his veins – nights like this, he wanted release and speed.

He loved Finch for knowing that. He loved him for indulging that need, for knowing that after a fast build and release there would be time for more refined foreplay. But it wasn’t indulgence: Finch reveled in the speed as much as in the slow.

Finch was right there with him, body and mind.

Even as his body raced toward climax, Reese felt the pull of doubt. He was here, yes, safe and whole, but it had been close. Too damn close. The man had come up behind him, when he should have been down for good. He’d come with a gun, and Reese had wheeled, kicked out, caught the gun hand and sent the bullet just over his right shoulder instead of directly into his chest. There was probably another tear in his overcoat; Finch would grumble in the morning and then repair it invisibly. The bullet had not hit John. He was safe, a little battered but not bleeding. He had survived.

Half a second, and he would not have been here, with his lover jacking him confidently toward orgasm …

It had been too damn close. 

Though he was very, very near to climaxing, John moved suddenly, clapped his hand over Finch’s wrist and stopped him. His lover made some surprised sound of protest, but he moved as quickly as he had away from the bullet, pushed the hand away, pushed Harold onto his back, and lunged downward. He plunged his mouth over Harold’s cock, taking him deep without preamble, sucking and licking frantically even as his hand kneaded Finch’s balls. The sound of protest became one of surprise and then of deep pleasure. John felt one hand on his shoulder, the other on his head. They did not try to stop the sudden assault. Finch’s hips thrust toward him and he made a sound that was purely lust.

“Yesssss,” Reese said around the cock, “yes!” He slid his free hand under Harold’s hips and lifted them, helped him thrust even as his moved his head up and down. Sucking, licking, hands, lips – all that mattered was that Harold climax, now, right _now_. Technique went out the window, but he knew enthusiasm would fill the gap. He needed Harold. Needed to taste him, needed his pleasure. Needed to know that his lover knew how much he meant to him. How much he loved him …

_It had been too damn close._

Finch made a little strangling noise. His fingers clutched convulsively, and he came, salty and bitter and so blessedly familiar, and he called John’s name.

John’s own climax caught him as he swallowed.

_It had been too damn close. But he’d survived._

He stayed where he was for a moment, panting, his cheek against Harold’s soft inner thigh. Then he moved up, put his head on his lover’s shoulder, felt his arm settle around him. Harold stroked his hair, kissed his forehead. Soothed him with wordless sounds as their both caught their breath.

Reese held him close and stared into the soft darkness. He’d thought, at first, that Harold turned the lights out because he was ashamed of his scars. But when he’d initiated sex in the morning light he’s encountered no resistance, and when he’d invited Harold to shower with him, the genius had readily agreed. It had puzzled John for a time. And then one night he’d woken from an afterglow nap and found Finch staring into the darkness, and ventured to most clichéd question a lover can ask: “What are you thinking about?”

Harold had gone silent for a moment; John feared he’d slipped back into his Very Private Person mode. But then Finch had smiled softly. “You know I don’t see very far without my glasses,” he’d explained. “With the lights out, when it’s dim … I can pretend that the whole world ends where the shadows begin. That there is nothing out there beyond this bed. No criminals and no victims. No pay phones or cell towers, no way for the Machine to reach us. No Machine at all, for that matter. No need for it. Nothing but this bed, and you here with me.” He’d glanced at John, then smirked, a reflective little laugh. “It’s silly, of course. I know in short order we’d want there to be more, food and drink and indoor plumbing, at the least, but for these rare few minutes that we get …”

He hadn’t finished the thought, because John had smothered the rest of his words in overwhelmed, grateful kisses.

He loved the darkness now. He loved being in the dark in Harold’s arms, with the rest of the world banished to shadows and oblivion. These rare few moments.

_It had been too damn close._

“Well,” Harold finally said softly, “do you want to tell me about it now?”

“No.”

“Alright.” His fingers continued to stroke through John’s hair. He did not insist; he would not.

“I lost a step,” Reese said.

“Hmm?”

“Out there. The guy, Spevak. I thought he was down, but he got up. Tried to shoot me.”

Harold’s arms tightened around him a little.

“He didn’t succeed, obviously,” John assured him. “I got turned around in time. But it was … a year ago, Harold, it wouldn’t have been close. But it was close this time. I’m slowing down.”

Finch kissed the top of his head.

“Don’t get me wrong,” Reese continued. He couldn’t stop talking now; he didn’t even try. He’d been thinking about it for weeks. He needed to say it out loud. “I’m still one of the best out there. I can take pretty much anybody.” It was bragging, but it was true, too. There weren’t many men John Reese feared, hand-to-hand or with a weapon. “But I’m slowing down. I can feel it. It’s nothing now. Almost nothing. But in five years, in ten …” He let his voice trail off. “I don’t want to leave you, Harold.”

“You don’t want to get any older,” Finch said softly.

It was an odd thing to say. “I don’t really see an alternative,” Reese answered. He shifted. “I can change my work-out some. Work on flexibility some more, maybe something for reflexes …” he let his voice trail off. He’d look into it, maybe consult with some trainers, see what was available and likely to work. “I can keep up for a while. But sooner or later, we’re going to have to accept that I won’t be able to do this forever.”

Finch made a noise in his chest, an unconcerned rumble. “You’re safe here and now, Mr. Reese. That’s what matters.”

Reese was just a little miffed that his partner wasn’t taking his heartfelt concerns seriously, but he did not answer.

“Tomorrow,” Harold continued, “will be time enough to see what our options are.”

“Options?” Reese asked.

“Training changes, as you suggest,” Finch mused. “But there may be some other alternatives as well. Perhaps some that you have not considered.”

John lifted his head and looked at him. “I’m not giving up the Numbers, Finch.”

Harold smiled gently. “Of course not. I wouldn’t think of suggesting that.” He pulled John close to him again. “Rest now. Tomorrow we’ll address this problem. Together.”

 _Together._ The word settled around Reese’s mind like a warm blanket. Of course Harold’s wasn’t ignoring his concern. But he was right. They would wait until tomorrow. Tonight, just for tonight, the world ended where the shadows began. Tonight it was just the bed and the two of them, together.

 ***

“If you had your choice, Mr. Reese,” Finch asked, “how would you like to die?”

Reese looked over at him. The genius was behind his computer desk, and he’d been happily tapping away for more than an hour. The question had come out of the blue. “I don’t imagine I’ll get much choice in the matter,” he answered carefully.

“Yes, but if you _did_?” Harold insisted.

John frowned, confused. The threat of death was always with them, of course, but it wasn’t like Harold to just drag it out into the open. “By gunshot, I guess. Something clean and quick. Frankly, I’d like to be surprised. If it’s inevitable, I don’t want any time to think about it.”

“Understandable.” He looked back toward his screens and fell silent.

“What would you pick?” Reese pursued. If his partner was going to start a conversation like that, he sure wasn’t going to let it drop. Who knew what information about Finch might come out of it?”

Finch adjusted his glasses. “I always thought perhaps I’d like to die in bed, sexually sated by an impossibly beautiful woman.”

John felt his jaw actually drop open. He knew the surprise was all over his face, and he felt helpless to disguise it. “I … sure, that would work.” Too late, he thought it might be a trap. “I mean, before you and I, I might have gone for something like that.” Neither of them had ever made any secret of their bisexuality, but they were monogamous together now. “These days, not so much.”

His partner looked at him with open speculation. “An impossibly beautiful woman and me, then?”

 _Ahhh,_ Reese thought, on slightly firmer mental ground. So his lover was hinting around at something. Although — Finch rarely hinted at things he wanted, and never in bed. And if he wanted to introduce the subject of a threesome, why on earth had he started with preferred ways to die? “Hypothetically,” he agreed, “that sounds wonderful.”

Finch’s eyebrow quirked up. “Only hypothetically?”

“Realistically, it implies that whatever’s going to kill me is also a threat to you, since you’re there in the bed with me. And that would be intolerable.”

“Ahh. Of course.” Finch turned again to his computers, with a satisfied little smile.

“What brought this on?” Reese probed.

Whatever answer he might have gotten was lost when Finch’s phone rang. The billionaire snagged it up. “Yes?” he said, not identifying himself. He listened for a moment, then nodded. “Very good. We’ll be there directly.” He clicked off the phone and stood up.

“New Number?” Reese asked, moving to get their coats.

“Y-no.”

John glanced at him. It was rare, now, that he caught Finch about to lie to him, but it still happened occasionally. As far as he knew, Harold had always caught himself before the lie actually occurred. “Which is it?”

“Not a Number,” Finch affirmed. “But there is someone … in need of our services.” He considered, nodded to himself, apparently satisfied that these words fulfilled his commitment to honesty. “Yes. Very much in need of our services.”

“Let me get a gun.”

“You won’t need a weapon, Mr. Reese. It’s not that kind of encounter.”

Reese studied him. “You know I hate it when you get all mysterious, Finch.”

Harold smiled again, briefly. His cheeks looked suspiciously pink. “Indulge me, Mr. Reese. I promise it will be … largely … enjoyable.”

“Largely?”

“Largely.” Finch headed out of the library.

Reluctantly intrigued, Reese followed.

 ***


	2. Chapter 2

Reese looked up as another passenger jet passed over their heads, loud and low. They were very close to the airport, in the path of final approach. It reminded him of being on the airstrip in Kandahar.

He wished he’d brought a gun.

The hotel was probably nice enough. The alley behind it, where he waited beside Finch, was not so nice. “What the hell are we doing here?” he asked, when the jet noise abated.

“Meeting someone,” Finch answered easily. He was looking around, and his posture was in direct contrast to his casual tone.

“We couldn’t meet them in the lobby?” There was something in the air, something that didn’t feel right. It put Reese on edge. “Or better yet, in the lobby of the hotel you actually _own_?”

Finch glanced at him dismissively. “Oh, no. That would be quite problematic.”

Which meant that this ‘encounter’ was important, and Finch didn’t want it involved with anything he owned. Reese felt the ache of emptiness at the small of his back. He was lonely for a gun.

“Ahhhhhh,” Finch said.

Reese turned. It hadn’t sounded like Finch was saying, ‘Ahh, there she is’. It sounded like the noise he made when he finally got all of John’s clothes off. Intimate.

And then he saw the woman and the noise made perfect sense.

She was standing in the mouth of the alley. She was tallish, thin – _willowy_ sprang to Reese’s mind. She wore a dark cloak that came clear to the ground, and her face was lost within the shadows of the deep hood. There was a silver clasp at the neck.

_A cloak?_ Reese’s logical mind protested. _A freaking cloak?_ If she had a dagger, too, he was going to be really pissed. Finch should have let him bring a gun. He should have insisted. She was dangerous …

She was dressed funny, his logic argued. That didn’t make her dangerous.

There was another part of his mind, though, where her appearance made perfect sense. Where he’d expected her to wear nothing else. Hell, where he _hoped_ she was wearing nothing else.

_What the hell?_

With great effort, he looked toward Harold. “Who is she?”

Finch stared at the woman. He didn’t even try to look away, to meet Reese’s eyes. His mouth was open a little. He licked his lip. “Raven,” he pronounced, very softly, like a prayer.

Reese swiveled back. The woman raised one hand to her hood. She was going to let them see her face. John’s pulse raced with anticipation, with arousal. Her face …

His logical brain shouted, _WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?_

The hood fell back.

The woman was very pale. Her hair was long, straight, shiny, black. Her eyes were black, too, and shiny. Her lips were red and full and bright.

_SHE’S NOT FUCKING HUMAN_ , John’s sense insisted in alarm that edged on terror.

“I don’t fucking care,” he murmured aloud.

He couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Joy that was also pain gathered at the center of his chest. And at the base of his cock. She was so impossibly beautiful …

What had Harold said? Something about an impossibly beautiful woman. Those exact words. It hadn’t been an hour ago, why couldn’t he remember the words?

The woman smiled. Suddenly he couldn’t even remember his name. Not that it mattered. She was impossibly beautiful, and he had to have her.

He felt Harold’s hand on his back. He knew without looking — because he could not look away from her, now that he could see her face — that Finch couldn’t look away from her, either. “Go get her,” he said quietly.

“Huh?”

“If you catch her, we can have her.” The touch suddenly turned into a shove. “ _Go!”_

Reese stumbled forward. By the second step he was running toward the woman. Her smile grew brighter. She turned away, a sweep of black cloak and purple-blue beneath, and fled.

She was unrealistically fast. Reese flat sprinted after her, but he couldn’t seem to gain any ground. There were twenty yards between them. She dodged through the few pedestrians on the sidewalk. No one tried to stop her. No one tried to stop him, either. It was like they were invisible. But how could she be invisible, when just seeing her made his hormones flood and his heart race? How could these other men possibly just let her pass?

He didn’t know and he didn’t care. He just had to catch her. Harold said if he caught her he could have her. And he had to have her. He would die if he couldn’t have her. He put on another burst of speed, closed the gap to fifteen yards. He would catch up with her and then he would …

She turned right around the corner of the building, out of sight.

Reese kept running, but that small smothered logical part of his mind managed to speak. _Then you would what? Throw her on the ground and fuck her in the middle of the street? What if she doesn’t want you? Do you just plan to force her?_

His hormone argued back. Sh _e will want me. She must want me. She has to. Because if she doesn’t …_

He rounded the corner, caught sight of her again, and his logic got stomped into oblivion once more. _Run her down, catch her, take her._

Reese was getting tired. Slowing down. He still desperately wanted to catch her, but his leg didn’t have any sprint left in them. He wasn’t getting any closer. But he wasn’t falling back, either. Either she was tiring, too, or she’s slowed down to let him keep up. Either way, a plan started to form in his hunter brain. Slow some more, let her slow, get a little closer, throw down one last blast of speed. _Run her down, catch her, take her._

She turned another corner. To the right again. She was headed back toward the hotel. That was good, logic brain offered. The hotel, even the alley behind it where he’d left Finch, was better than out in the middle of the street.

_Where he’d left Finch._

It caught him in mid-stride. He’d left Finch alone and defenseless while he chased this woman.

But Finch wasn’t in any danger, was he? And Finch had told him to go. He’d said …

He turned the corner and saw her again, and again his logic ceased to exist. She ran. He chased.

He knew before she turned the last corner that she would turn there. She was headed right back to Finch. Well, maybe Finch could catch her. Hold her until Reese got there. And then … and then …

When she turned out of sight, his rational mind came back. _She’s not fucking human_ , it said again, not shouting but as clear as ever _. You can’t think when you look at her. That’s not like you, John. Think. Slow down and think. What are you dealing with here? What if Finch can’t think, either? What if she gets to him before you do? What if …_

He turned the corner and the logic shut off like a switch.

But this time, instead of passion and desperate need, it was replaced by rage.

The woman was in Finch’s arms, and he was kissing her.

Reese dropped to a walk. A stalk. He would kill him, he thought simply. Kill Harold and claim the woman, here and now.

He paused in mid-stride. He loved Harold.

Kill himself, then, and let Harold have her.

Because clearly those were the only two options.

He stalked closer, still undecided. Why hadn’t he brought a gun? It would make things so much easier.

The need in him rose up as a growl in his throat.

Finch opened his eyes, pulled his lips away from the woman’s. For a bare instant there was madness in his blue eyes, an insanity that Reese knew was reflected in his own. A challenge. _Come and take her, if you can._ Then he blinked, shifted his arms, and turned the woman around. “John,” he said, his voice edged with ferocity, “this is Raven.”

John’s cock felt like it was made of glass, like just the right vibration in the air would cause it to explode.

He moved closer.

He thought Harold tried to push the woman toward him, but he couldn’t manage it. He kept his arm wrapped possessively around her waist, her back pressed against his chest. It didn’t matter. Reese moved in and without pause crushed his lips against hers. He felt her arms wrap around his shoulders and his whole body rejoiced in her embrace. Her lips parted, her tongue plundered his mouth with as much enthusiasm as his did hers. He put his arms around her, around Harold, and drew both of them tight against him.

Raven moaned in pleasure.

He knew she could feel his erection against her. He was certain that she could feel Harold’s as well. She didn’t object to either. Objection seemed to be the furthest thing from her mind.

_If you catch her, we can have her._ That’s what Harold had said. _W e can have her._ For the first time, John could process that word. _We._ Together.  

Harold’s face was just over her shoulder. John managed to lift his lips from hers and press them to his lover’s, very briefly, before he had to, _had to_ kiss her again. “Harold,” he murmured into her mouth. “Raven.”

His hand slid over the cloak, across her breasts and up to the silver clasp. She made a soft keening sound and her body writhed against him, welcoming the touch, welcoming whatever he wanted.

Finch yanked the woman backward, out of his grasp. Reese roared with anger and went after her, but Harold blocked him with his body, turned her away. Not seeing her face let John grab a tiny thread of sanity. “Raven!” Finch barked. “Hood. Now.”

She kept her face averted, pulled her hood back up. Vanished into the shadow.

Reese managed to look away from her, but he sobbed at the loss. “Harold, please. _Please!”_

“Yes,” Finch assured him quickly. “Oh, yes. You can have her. As much as you want. We both can. I promise. But inside.”

Raven kept her head down, her back turned. She walked to the side entrance of the hotel and swiped her room key through the lock.

Harold took John’s arm and guided him after her. He was careful not to touch the woman, and though John wanted to grab her again frantically, he recognized the wisdom in distance. Finch nodded approvingly. “The last thing we need is to get arrested again.”

From beneath the hood, John thought he heard Raven giggle.

They followed her to the service elevator. Again the key card gave them access. Reese almost cried when she pressed the ‘23’ button. That was much too far away. He took Harold’s hand and squeezed it fiercely. “It’s okay,” Finch promised. “It’s okay.”

The woman turned and faced the back corner of the elevator. She was nothing but a slender black shape then. Reese could breathe, could half-way think. Enough to know that he was badly disoriented, out of control. That he still had a raging hard-on. He glanced over. Finch did, too. And from the look in his eyes, he was only slightly less unhinged. But he nodded reassuringly. “It’s okay,” he said again. “Two more minutes and then you can let go.”

Reese’s mouth was dry. He licked his lips. They tasted like Raven. Like desire and madness and magic.

“Who is she?” he managed to ask.

The elevator dinged and stopped. After a maddeningly long pause that was probably actually three seconds long, the door opened. Finch took Reese by the arm and pulled him out into the hallway. They waited off to the side. Raven slipped out, still facing the wall, and moved away from them. The men followed, grasping each other’s arms for support and restraint.

It was a very long walk to the hotel room. Reese’s cock ached.

Finally, finally, she stopped and opened a door. She walked through. The men followed. The door closed. Reese reached back and put on the privacy lock without ever taking his eyes off the woman.

Finch walked to her, pushed her hood back, and kissed her again.

Reese held onto the door knob with both hands. It kept him from leaping forward and strangling his beloved partner, but only just. He watched the way her back arched over Harold’s arm, the way her slender pale fingers came up to trace along his jaw line. Though John still wanted her frantically, something in him eased. He remembered how well Harold kissed, and he was glad she was enjoying that kiss.

Then he licked his lips and tasted her again, and he screamed through clenched teeth.

Somehow, Harold lifted his lips from hers again. “Of course, John,” he said with astonishing clarity. He slid behind the woman and moved her towards him.  

Reese reached for her eagerly. Slid his hands under the cloak and around her waist. She was wearing what felt like satin. The skin beneath was warm. He drew her close and kissed her. Her lips parted for him easily and he tasted her again. John put one foot between hers, pushing her legs apart, pressing his crotch tight against hers. Her hands were busy at his shoulders. She pushed his overcoat away and then his suit coat. Her fingers moved to the front of his shirt and he was torn between giving her enough room to undress him and keeping her tight against him. The desire for skin contact finally won out and Reese loosened his grasp just a little, lifted his head.

Harold, bless him a thousand times, was still behind her. His nimble fingers came around the front of her neck. One hand stroked her slender throat. The other undid the silver clasp that held the cloak. He drew it back and the garment fell onto the floor behind her. Reese looked down. It was satin, the dress she wore, and a beautiful blend of blue and black and purple, depending on where the light fell. It was long, though he could not bear to stand back enough to see all of it. It wrapped at the waist, and above he could see the swell of her white breasts.

Still painfully confined in his pants, his long-erect cock began to weep with desire.

Raven pushed his shirt away. His wrists got caught in the cuffs and John tore at them impatiently. She already had his t-shirt up by then, and he gladly ducked out of it. He toed out of his shoes and kicked them aside.

Harold’s hands covered her breasts, caressed them through her dress. Raven sighed and turned her head to catch his lips. It was almost unbearable, but her hot pale hands descended on John’s chest, trailing across muscle and his own hardening nipples, and his anger died. He used the moment to undo his belt and his pants. She turned back to him, kissed him, and now he could taste Harold on her lips as well.

He groaned in ecstasy and desperation.

Raven’s hands slid down to his hips and pushed his pants away.

Harold’s hands unfastened whatever held the dress closed. He pulled the fabric to the sides and revealed her to John. She was naked beneath it. Her bare skin was magnificently white against the dark of her clothes, her breasts firm and perfect, the nipples nearly as red as her lips, already hard.

John cried out, all but overwhelmed. He felt dizzy, lost. He kicked at his pants around his ankles, got one leg free, not the other. It didn’t matter. He got his hands on her skin as Harold peeled the dress off entirely. “Please,” he begged. There were no other words. “Please, please.”

She smiled beneath his lips. Nodded. Backed away. John held her fiercely. She could not leave. He could not let her leave. It wasn’t until Harold moved behind him, pushed him, that he realized she was trying to lead him to the bed. He moved with her, then, willingly. Harold’s hands were on his back, peeling away his boxer briefs as they moved. _I love this man_ , Reese thought through the haze of overwhelming arousal. Raven’s tongue played irresistibly over his. _I don’t know what he’s done here or how, but I love him for this. For so many things._

Raven stopped at the edge of the bed. Reese scooped her up and lowered her down. He leaned over her eagerly, only vaguely aware that Finch was peeling his pants off his ankles for him. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except that he had to have her, to cover her, to possess her. _Now._

The last fading flickers of reason screamed two words at him: _Foreplay_ and _condom_.

He moved between her legs. Raven reached for him, pulled him toward her. He caught one rouged nipple between his lips and she shrieked in pleasure, but she kept pulling him closer, insistent. Clearly, foreplay was off the table. Maybe chasing her around the block counted.

His raging erection was already against her skin, at her opening. It took every ounce of will he possessed not to enter her immediately. He held himself very still, crying out in frustration.

Harold was beside them, his hand warm on John’s back. “Go on,” he said. “Take her.”

Reese shook his head frantically. There were tears of want in his eyes now. He couldn’t breathe. He felt like he would die if he didn’t enter her, fuck her, and yet, and yet … “C-c-c …”

“What is it?” Finch asked against is ear. “What do you need?”

“C-c-condom …” he managed to say through his clenched teeth.

Harold snorted. “Always the Boy Scout. There’s no need. Don’t worry about it.”

“B-b-but …”

“It’s alright, John. I swear.”

It went against everything John knew. But Finch had promised never to lie to him. And he wanted him to believe him. No, he just didn’t care. He wanted this woman. He couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think. He was absolutely certain he was going die, literally die, if he couldn’t take her.

Raven smiled up at him. She raised her hand to his face, cupped his cheek, ran her thumb over his cheekbone. “What a beautiful thoughtful boy you are,” she said. Her voice was warm, throaty with her own desire. “Come to me.”

And then she moved against him and he was lost.

He thrust into her. She was tight, but slick, and he entered with just the right amount of friction. He went deep, all the way, without hesitation. Then he paused, deeply seated. The sick sharp edge of his desire retreated like a fever breaking, leaving only pleasure in its place. If only he could stay right here forever, right here …

Raven drew his face down and kissed him. He tried to keep his weight on his arms. She retreated just a little, thrust against him. _No rest for the wicked_ , he thought, and grinned. Then he withdrew and thrust against her in response.

There was time for some long, slow strokes. Time to study her face while he fucked her almost casually. Her eyes really were black. They were also bright and smiling, pleased with everything he did. He basked in her approval. There was nothing in the world, he realized, more important than pleasing Raven, but there was no pressure implied there. He had a cock, and then a mouth, and then fingers, and he would use them all to exhaustion in her service. Her smile said that she knew that, and more, that she’d never had any doubt.

His thrusts grew faster, still steady, still deep.

Her face had the freshness of a girl, the calm wisdom of an old woman. He realized with surprise that he could not have said reliably whether she was fifteen or fifty. Even that close, he wasn’t sure.

He didn’t care.

Beside him, Finch groaned softly. Reese managed to glance toward him. His lover was stripping out of his own clothes. His cock was clearly erect, straining against his silk boxers. Reese remembered every inch of it, every crease, its weight, its width. Harold was ready. He was waiting his turn.

It had to be agony, Reese knew, to wait. Waiting to claim Raven would be agony. He turned his attention back to the woman and hurried his strokes.

Third in the John Reese lexicon of lovemaking, after foreplay and condoms, was ladies first — lovers first, since his romance with Finch. He did not, would not, let himself climax before he’d pleased his lover. But he was already slipping toward the edge with this woman. He moved faster still, torn between his desire to please her and to get out of Finch’s way. And his own desire. As badly as he’d wanted to enter her, now he wanted to come inside her. Wanted, wanted. He tried to hold back, and the attempt almost made him scream again.

“No, no,” Raven said. “Don’t hold back. Come with me.”

Her voice rose sharply at the end. Reese put one hand behind her shoulders and lifted her off the bed, holding her so he could thrust harder. She closed her eyes, rolled her head back. “Oh, yes,” she said, through her own clenched teeth. “Oh, there, yes!”

Reese gave up all thought of control and simply fucked her, as hard and as fast as he could. It felt right. It felt like what she wanted. It was damn sure what _he_ wanted. His strokes went shorter, faster. Her fingers flexed on his skin, driving him harder, holding him closer. He let himself get lost in the wonder of that, that Raven wanted him, wanted him inside her, wanted his pleasure within her. Her body clenched around him as her orgasm began and then he was utterly lost. He managed two more long strokes, and then he was coming, hard, screaming again as he did.

He collapsed onto her, into Raven’s arms, and she held him, stroked him. Her body still trembled around him. John felt like he was floating, out of his own body, utterly unhinged in rapture.

And he wanted her again, even before his cock went soft.

“Damn it, John,” Finch said roughly. There was a hand on his shoulder, a hard shove. “ _Move!”_

Reese let himself fall off to the side. He rolled once, pulling Raven with him, making room on the far side of her for Finch. They were on the white sheets, he noticed. He didn’t remember who’d pulled back the bedspread and blankets. or when. It didn’t matter. Harold climbed onto the bed, laid on his back, and grabbed frantically for the woman. John helped her to sit up. She threw one leg over Harold’s, straddled him, the lowered herself onto his stiff pulsing cock.

They’d never done anything like this before, he and Harold. Nothing even close. But it didn’t matter. John had never seen anything more erotic in his life than watching his lover’s cock vanish into this woman’s ready, welcoming pussy. He stretched out next to them and watched intently. He watched the relief on Harold’s face when he was finally seated deeply inside her. He watched the joy that played over Raven’s expression while she let him rest there. She seemed so very pleased to have him inside her. Her hands stroked over Harold’s shoulders, over his chest, combed through the sparse covering of brown and silver hair there. Grazed over his nipples, which John knew were exceptionally sensitive. But she didn’t move, not yet. She recognized the sublime relief in him just to have entered her, and she let him revel in it.

John still couldn’t decide how old she was.

Harold made a small noise and she moved, up and back, small strokes, slowly. He groaned. Raven leaned forward and kissed him deeply. Reese watched their lips, caught glimpses of their tongues. Her hips continued to move slowly. Harold’s hand fell to the bed and his fingers began to clench and release the sheet in rhythm to her movement.

“More,” Harold whispered, pleaded.

The woman sat up, on her heels, and began moving in longer strokes on his cock.

Reese looked at her whole body for the first time. Her skin was impossibly white, as if she never left the house without a parasol. Her breasts were high, firm, and her nipples had remained hard and red. Her arms were smooth, limber, strong. Her waist tapered nicely, flared into smooth hips. The curve of her ass was just a little lavish, in perfect balance with her breasts. Her black hair flowed across her back, moved like a river with the motion of her body. She had a tiny navel, and below, just a small patch off black above her crease.

Harold’s cock appeared and disappeared behind that patch. His body trembled with desire, and his hips rose with her as well as they could. Higher on his right side than his left. For a fleeting instant Reese wished he could help, that Finch could thrust as well as he could. He leaned forward, then rolled back. There was no need. Raven would take care of him.

She moved faster, rising up on strong thighs, lowering herself to take that cock deep into her. John could feel Harold’s pleasure, could feel Raven’s. He reached over and took his lover’s hand. Finch’s fingers closed over his. They tightened and loosened with ever stroke. Harold turned his head and looked at him for one moment. John grinned encouragement.

Harold closed his eyes, moaned, pleaded wordlessly. Raven shortened her strokes, took him faster, just as John had taken her. She leaned forward again, claimed Harold’s mouth without reserve.

Finch’s hand crushed Reese’s, and his hips thrust upward sharply, and John watched as he came and came.

Harold’s hips collapsed onto the bed. Raven stayed on top of him, with his cock still inside her. They were both panting. She kissed him again, lingering.

She turned her head and looked at Reese.

His cock had been half-erect from watching them. The minute their eyes met, he was fully hard again. It wasn’t just a physical desire. It was a deep and urgent need. He had to fuck her again. _Now_.   

_Who the hell was she?_

_What was she doing to them?_

“Come to me,” Raven invited. “Take me.”

Reese scrambled up. He had a brief moment of confusion; he didn’t want to make Finch leave her, but he had to be inside her, too. She was kneeling over Finch, her ankles next to his hips, her ass in the air. The answer was immediately obvious.

He knew how to do this. Finch said condoms weren’t necessary, and that ship had sailed now. But without lube? Reese glanced down at his cock, which was as erect and hard as if he’d been celibate for a year. Her fluids still glistened on it, slick, but so did his, sticky.

John looked at them again. Finch was still now, resting, his cock likely flaccid inside her. They were both looking at him patiently. _Figure this out,_ he thought frantically. _They want you to join them, figure this out._ To share a woman with Finch, to be inside her with his partner, was an unbearably exciting idea. He just needed …

He moved to kneel behind Raven on the bed, between Harold’s calves. He put his hand on her back and pushed her gently; she obligingly leaned and kissed Finch again. He didn’t object. Reese reached down and cupped his partner’s balls for a moment, feeling their familiar weight, their texture. Then he straightened two fingers and slid them up along Harold’s cock, inside the woman’s pussy. She was still tight and slick. Both of them groaned in pleasure. He felt Harold’s cock twitch and begin to fill. He withdrew and thrust his fingers again and again, stroking both of them. Finch’s cock hardened, limiting his movement. He withdrew, used Raven’s own juices to slick his way as he teased around her other opening. He slipped his fingertip inside her ass, and then his whole finger.

She shuddered immediately in climax. Harold cried out as she clenched around him. John sensed that it took a huge effort for his partner to remain still. He bent his finger slightly toward her front, running it along the thin barrier that separated him from Harold’s cock. Then he withdrew and replaced one finger with two.

Finch thrust gently, unable to stop himself. Raven began to move, up and back, rutting against both of them. “Please,” she murmured. “Please.”

It was hugely gratifying to hear her plead. Reese didn’t have the self-control to hold out for more. He withdrew his fingers completely and moved up behind her, his knees between Harold’s outstretched legs, and pressed the head of his cock – already leaking pre-cum – against her opening. He moved forward very slowly.

Raven unexpectedly thrust back against him. He was suddenly sheathed deep within her ass, his cock parallel to Harold’s, separated only by a thin warm barrier. It was very tight, very hot. He pulled back and thrust again. His balls brushed against Finch’s.

He thought again that he was going to die of pleasure. What the hell had Harold said about that? Something about dying in bed … something … he couldn’t remember.

It didn’t matter.

Harold tried to move. Reese knew that thrusting from the bottom hurt his lover, later if not now, that it aggravated his old injury. But more to the point, in this configuration it wasn’t helpful. John leaned forward, pressing his back against Raven’s to kiss Harold’s mouth. The taste of the two of them together was heady, overpowering. “Be still,” he said clearly. “Let me do this.”

Finch opened his eyes and met his gaze. This close, Reese knew, he could see him without his glasses. He smiled, and Finch smiled back. A beautiful smile. He had never loved him more.

He sat back on his knees and took Raven’s hips between his hands. He held her still while he worked her, withdrawing, thrusting, feeling Harold, feeling her. He moved as slowly as he could. The woman protested, tried to move against him. He held her tight, and continued at a casual pace. Harold complained then, too. Reese knew his motion was driving the woman up and back on Finch’s cock as well. The slow thrusts were driving both of them to the edge.

He thrust, enjoying their pleasure, his pleasure. His power. His control.

Raven shuddered again. Harold cried out, his hips moving helplessly at the bottom of the pile. Suddenly Reese could not maintain his control. His own orgasm was there, a few strokes away. He drove hard, fast, fucking her, fucking Finch. He drove them over the edge, and then he followed them over. The room filled with the sounds of their climaxes.

Raven’s body continued to squeeze and tremble after both men were done, her contractions squeezing them almost past pleasure and into pain. Finally she slumped over Finch’s chest. Reese leaned over her, careful to keep his weight on his knees. He kissed Finch, and then Raven turned her head and he kissed her, too.

Finally, carefully, he withdrew. His lower legs were already over the end of the bed; he staggered to his feet. The woman rolled off Finch and sprawled on her back in the center of the bed. Harold simply stared at the ceiling, his face blank and blissful.

Reese fell against the wall and made his way hand-over-hand to the bathroom. He cleaned himself off and got a drink of water. He looked in the mirror at himself. He was pale, a little drawn. He looked exhausted. It wasn’t surprising; he was tired to the bone. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d come that hard twice in a row. Something about the woman …

He heard her laugh softly.

His cock went half-hard. That was absurd. He wasn’t seventeen any more. Twice in a row was enough. He couldn’t possibly go again, not that hard. Not this soon.

It was like those stupid TV commercials that kept popping up between innings when he watched baseball. For an erection lasting more than four hours … his eyes narrowed. Had the woman drugged them somehow? But he’d been hard back in the alley, before he’d even kissed her. So it wasn’t her.

Finch, perhaps dropping something in his morning coffee? And his own tea? Because Harold has reloaded just as fast as Reese had.

But this was more than an erectile dysfunction drug. He thought back to the previous hour. The absolute madness, the senseless obsession. Some kind of hallucinogen? Some new designer drug?

Why would Harold do that? Or had someone gotten to them, somehow?

The laugh again, a murmur of her voice. Reese’s cock stirred, but also his instinct. She was dangerous, somehow. He had to get back out there.

He refilled the tumbler with water, got warm wet washcloths for his companions, and walked back to the bedroom. He was almost steady on his feet now.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stick with me. It'll be okay. I promise.

Harold was sitting up against the headboard. Raven was kneeling beside him, her head in her lap. Her face was concealed by the fall of her hair, like a dark curtain over Finch’s thighs, but he could tell by his partner’s expression that she was sucking his cock.

His own dick stirred again to attention.

His suspicions, his ability to be suspicious, flew away.

He sat on the bed behind the woman and handed the water to Finch. Harold drank, but Reese had to help him hold the cup. His hand was shaking. He put it down on the bedside table with the washcloths, ran his hand over Raven’s back. Finch was panting already. Reese swept the woman’s hair back and over to the other side of her head, so that he could watch.

It was mesmerizing. Harold’s cock, hard and straight, dusky with blood, sliding in and out of Raven’s bright red lips. She took him very deep, impressively deep. Her hand cupped and worked his balls. Her thumb and forefinger circled the base of his cock tightly, restraining him. Harold’s feet shifted restlessly; his toes curled and uncurled.

John looked up at his partner’s face. Finch was watching him, passion and pleasure wiping away the customary reserve of his expression. His breaths were short, shallow. His hands clenched and unclenched. He was close.

Reese took his hand again. “Oh, Harold,” he murmured. He felt oddly privileged to watch his very private partner so naked, so unhidden. He might have been jealous that this woman was giving his lover such pleasure, but because it obviously _was_ such pleasure for him, John couldn’t begrudge it.

He was also perfectly certain that he would be next. Raven was nothing if not fair with her favors.

“John,” Harold said. It came out in three syllables, in three different keys. Finch shook convulsively, coming hard, and his eyes closed in bliss.

Raven stayed where she was, swallowing his cum, then licking him clean. Finch moaned and shook, half-erect immediately.

“She’s going to kill us if she keeps this up,” Reese said softly, admiring.

She lifted her head and looked at him. Then she looked up at Harold. “You didn’t tell him?”

Finch shook his head. “I thought it would be easier to show him. You are a bit … difficult to explain.”

She lapped at his cock once more, then sat up. She had just a dot of white at the corner of her mouth. Reese leaned quickly and licked it away. He retrieved the water for her and she drank the rest of it. Her grateful smile sliced through to his core. He looked away, embarrassed, moved. He got the washcloths, handed one to Finch, used the other to wipe the woman’s face and then worked down her throat to her chest.

His erection was raging again.

“You should have told him,” she said, to Finch.

“Told me what?” Reese asked. He had a sense he should be concerned, but he could not think further than running the rough washcloth firmly over Raven’s pointed nipple. She arched her back in appreciation and he repeated the gesture on the other side. Then he bent and sucked one nipple into his mouth while he continued to caress the other with the coarse cloth.

Her hand dropped to his dick. She wrapped her fingers around him with sure firmness.

“Raven is not quite what she appears to be,” Finch said.

“No kidding.” John released the nipple and kissed his way toward her tiny perfect navel. She stroked his cock and leaned back against Finch.

“No. In fact, she not’s …” His breath caught. Reese lifted his head a little, enough to see that her other hand had reached behind her and grabbed his cock again. “She’s not …” Finch gave up. “Raven, stop. Stop. We need to talk now.”

She made a sound of protest.

Finch lifted her hand away firmly. “John, help me,” he said, exasperated.

Reese sat up straight, but he was not about to remove her hand from his own erection. Instead, he caught her legs and pulled her down, until she was on her back on the bed between them. He ran the washcloth down her belly to that enticing little patch of dark between her legs. Raven squirmed and tried to roll away. He put his thigh over hers, pulled her legs open, and rubbed firmly down her cleft, cleaning her and arousing her at the same time.

The sound she made this time was not protest.

Reese lay down beside her, his head propped on his hand, his other hand still between her legs. Finch joined him, taking the same posture on the other side of her. The genius kissed her, then lowered his head stiffly to suck her nipple into his mouth. Her hand on John’s cock spasmed and he grunted sharply.

“Stop,” Finch said again. He bit her breast sharply enough that she squealed. Then he took her wrist and firmly pulled her hand over her head. Her fingers curled around the decorative bar on the headboard. With an apologetic look, Finch took her other hand off Reese’s cock and did the same. “We need to talk, Raven. Keep them there or I’ll nip you again.”

She kept her hands over her head, but her body writhed between then.

Oddly, Reese found that he didn’t mind the sudden absence of her hand on his erection. As long as she was happy, he could wait. He rubbed her again, firmly, slowly. Her response told him she liked the friction.

Harold flicked his tongue over her nipple again. “Raven is not human,” he announced vaguely. He seemed distracted.

“Uh-huh,” John answered, without surprise. He focused the pressure of the washcloth on her clit, watched the delighted response on her face. Her lips formed a little ‘O’ of pleasure. “Kiss her,” he said.

Finch leaned and kissed her at length. The woman made a happy little noise against his mouth.

Reese moved his touch to the creases at the top of her thighs, denying her direct stimulation for the moment. “She looks human.” He looked back at her face as Finch drew back from the kiss. Her hair had fallen back to the pillow and for the first time he noticed that the tips of her ears were just a little pointed. There was a certain gamine look to her. Almost, and he could never have said it out loud, _elvish_. “Mostly.”

“Mostly,” Harold agreed. His upper hand stroked the outside of her ear as if he’d just noticed them, too. Raven turned her head and pressed a kiss against his palm. “But she’s not. That’s why there is no need for condoms. You and I have both been tested, so we’re safe together. And she …” he paused and leaned to kiss her mouth again as if he were compelled, “… _she_ cannot contract, carry, or transmit any human disease.”

“And no children?” Reese tossed the washcloth over the side of the bed and began to explore her folds and creases with the tip of his longest finger.

“I have children,” Raven protested vaguely.

“Not human children,” Finch corrected. His hand strayed to her breasts again. “Neither of us can put her with child, I assure you.”

At least that part made sense now, John thought. He was aware enough to know that his thinking was fuzzy again. It was hard to concentrate on Harold’s words. Hard to concentrate on anything except Raven’s body and how it responded to their touch. He tried harder to think. “Is she an alien, then?” he guessed.

“We were here way before you monkey boys showed up,” she answered, chuckling.

Harold’s hand trailed down across her trembling belly and joined John’s at her center. Raven made a little pleased, protesting noise and tried to close her legs. Finch threw his own thigh over hers, holding her as Reese did. Their fingers moved, in contrast and in unison, over her sex.

“She is one of the Old Ones,” Harold confirmed. “One of the last of them, sadly.” He used his thumb and forefinger to hold her labia open. Reese caressed the tip of her clit with his finger, lightly, brushing. They both paused to watch as her body stiffened, as her orgasm took her. While she caught two deep breaths. And then their hands moved again. “She’s a succubus.”

That, Reese thought, through the smothering fog that filled his brain, ought to be ridiculous. And alarming. The most he could work up was mild concern. He moved his hand a little lower, slipped his finger inside her. Despite having been vigorously and recently fucked by both him and Harold, she remained tight and close. “Isn’t she dangerous, then?”

“She can be,” Finch agreed. His own finger slipped in next to John’s. The woman groaned in appreciation. “I suppose at one time she was. But these days our pretty Raven tries very hard to be a good girl. Don’t you, love?”

“Uh-huh,” she agreed. Her eyes were closed, her mouth still in a pretty little ‘O’.

Finch moved his finger out and in. Reese moved with him, their hands pressed together, their rhythms synched perfectly. “Most of the time, simple sex is enough to satisfy her. Exhaustive, vigorous sex, to be sure, but nothing that does any lasting harm to the … I suppose you’d have to call him a victim, though I’ve never heard one complain.”

Their hands moved faster together. Raven’s body trembled between them.

Reese was aware that his cock was hard and straining again, but it hardly mattered. It wasn’t his own sexual satisfaction that was in play here, he realized. That was merely a side effect. A blissful, soul-shaking, bone-rattling side effect. This was all about the woman.

“But,” Harold continued, “you can’t ask a tiger to be a vegetarian forever. Sooner or later, if it’s going to survive, it needs meat.”

“It needs to hunt,” Reese translated. “And to kill.”

The alarm this time sliced through the fog of sex. If Raven needed to kill — and that made perfect sense to him, she was what she was and she couldn’t survive indefinitely on a diet that was the equivalent of junk food — then the only reason they were here was …

Raven’s pussy clenched around his finger and Finch’s as she came. They continued to thrust through the sudden tightness, driving the climax longer. Reese got his thumb on her clit again and rubbed it hard. Her orgasm rolled on, deep, bottomless, endless, until she thrashed and screamed and cried. Until the men were trembling as hard as she was. Until none of them could endure any more.

They stopped, withdrew their hands. Raven collapsed onto the bed as if she were boneless. Wrung out. Possibly half-conscious.

For a moment or two, Reese could think clearly. _It’s her_ , he realized. _She’s what clouds my mind. And she’s dangerous. She means to kill us. She has to kill us. She doesn’t want to, but she has to. For her own survival._

Harold had said she was one of the last of the Old Ones. Perhaps it wasn’t such a sacrifice, to ensure her survival at the cost of one life. The planet was crawling with humans, and there were so few like her. It wasn’t so much to ask …

But Harold was there, too. Reese might have considered giving his own life for her, but not Harold’s. Harold was precious, and as rare in his way as Raven was.

He sat up, then reached across the woman’s body and grabbed Finch by the shoulder, hard. “We have to get out of here,” he said urgently. “Harold, listen to me. We have to go, right now.”

Finch looked up at him. His eyes were clear, too. He held Reese’s wrist. “No, John. It’s alright. There’s no danger here. She won’t hurt us. At least, not without our consent.”

“But we _will_ consent, Harold. That’s the point. Once she get that — whatever that is going, once she has your dick or mine in her hand or her mouth — we’ll agree to anything. We have to go.”

Without opening her eyes, Raven said, “You should have told him all of it.”

“Yes, yes,” Finch sighed. He sounded annoyed. He sat up slowly, clearly stiff from the day’s exertions. “And again, far easier to show him than to explain.”

“Explain _what_?” John asked urgently. The woman was waking up. He could feel his mind fogging over again. His fear and alarm were fading into a pleasant cloud of everything’s-alright-ness. But it wasn’t alright. It was a trap, and he had to get out of it. Get Harold out of it …

“Did you bring the things I asked?”

Reese blinked at him, but his partner was clearly addressing the woman. “In the closet,” she answered, waving vaguely.

“Thank you.” Finch stood and walked unsteadily around the bed. He sat down next to Reese. “John, I need you to listen to me.”

“No, Harold. We have to go …” Already he couldn’t remember why, only that it was very important that they leave _right now_.

“Do you trust me, John?”

“With my life, Harold, but …”

“With your life, yes.” Finch nodded. “Exactly that.”

“But _her_ ,” Reese protested, nodding to the woman, “we can’t trust _her_. She needs to kill us. You just said so yourself. We have to … we have to …”

 Raven’s hand closed around his cock, and suddenly John couldn’t remember why he wanted to leave. Why he would ever want to leave. “We have to …” he began one last time, fighting to keep his thoughts straight, “we have to …”

“It’s cruel, Harold,” Raven said quietly.

“It’s necessary,” Finch snapped back. “He won’t believe me any other way.” He leaned closer, took John’s face between his hands, and kissed him deeply. “I’m sorry, John. This next half hour is going to be awful for you, and I’m so sorry. But there’s really no other way.”

Reese blinked at him. He didn’t know what his lover was talking about, or why he was so sorry. It was very hard to focus on his words while Raven’s hand was doing such clever things to his cock. He remembered now that he’d been hard for a very long time, but her sure little fingers promised relief, very soon. “Harold …?”

An indulgent smile flashed over his partner’s face. “She does make it hard to concentrate, doesn’t she?”

“Yessssss.”

Finch kissed him again. It was quite marvelous, Reese decided, to kiss Harold while she did that. And that. And that. He’d had skillful hand jobs before, but nothing at all close to this. Well, with a thousand years or more of practice, a girl picked up a few tricks …

“John, listen to me,” Harold said firmly. He gestured to the clock at the side of the bed. “It’s two-thirty now. Just get through the next thirty minutes. By three o’clock, I promise that everything will make sense to you. That everything will be right. But you need to hang in there for thirty minutes. Just remember for that long that you trust me. That I would never leave you. That I don’t want to hurt you. That I love you. That everything will be fine. Can you remember that?”

“Harold … ”

“Three o’clock, John. Stay with me until three o’clock. Promise me.”

John’s head felt like it was stuffed with cotton. His intellect seemed to have migrated to his groin, along with all the blood in his body. He could barely understand his lover’s words. He knew it was important, critical, but he couldn’t make any sense of any of it. “But where are you going?” 

“I’m not going anywhere. I promise you. By three o’clock I’ll be back. Can you remember that?”

His urgency frightened Reese. His sadness. For a split instant he wanted to slap Raven’s hand away, to grab Harold and make him explain. But then she ran the edge of her thumbnail under the head of his crown and he was lost again. “I’ll remember,” he promised.

“Good.” Harold kissed him one more time. “I love you, John.”

“I love you.”

Finch pushed on his shoulder, and Reese willingly lay back on the bed. He was aware that Harold moved away, but it didn’t matter, because Raven had removed her hand — a tragedy — and then quickly replaced it with her mouth. He closed his eyes, gave himself over to the sensation. If her hands were clever, her mouth was beyond description. _Not a thousand years,_ he thought. _Ten thousand. More?_ It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he ached to come for her, and that her clever hand was gripping him tight enough to keep him from coming, and that was good, too, because it meant her miraculous mouth stayed on him and he never wanted this to end.

Harold took his hand. John didn’t bother to open his eyes; he knew the touch. He let his lover pull his arm over his head. He heard a soft clink of chains at the same time he felt the touch of leather on his arm. He opened his eyes and looked up, curious but unconcerned. Finch was strapping a wide leather cuff around his wrist. “Okay,” he said. Harold finished buckling the restraint in three places, then ran the attached chain through the headboard and clipped it.

They’d played with restraints before. They had rules. One was that Reese always had to be able to get out of the restraints on his own. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Finch; it was that he was afraid one of their enemies would find them in mid-game. It was unreasonable, but Finch indulged his caution. This cuff, while more heavy-duty than they’d used, still fell within the rules. If necessary, Reese could unbuckle it for himself.

Beside, Finch didn’t make any attempt to restrain Reese’s other hand.

And Raven had formed her tongue into an improbably small point and was probing the opening in his cock, and really, nothing else mattered at all. His balls were full and hot and beginning to ache for release.

Finch moved to the foot of the bed and restrained one of Reese’s feet in the same way.

Raven abandoned the probing and began taking his cock in long deep strokes, using her hand and her mouth in unison. Reese could feel himself racing toward the edge. He closed his eyes again.

Harold was fussing with the cuff on his hand again, but it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except the white-hot desire and the confident knowledge that she would bring him off very, very soon. His hips jerked upward and she slid her hands under his ass, lifted him higher as she took him deeper. She was surprisingly strong. Confident. And she wanted this from him …

Reese heard a snap the sounded like a padlock, and then he came, and came, and came.

Raven stayed with him, her mouth and her tongue, long after the climax ended. John lowered his free hand to stroke her shiny hair. The restraints were just a little uncomfortable; between the hand and the leg he was overextended, stretched. But he didn’t complain. Whatever Harold had in mind …

Raven slipped away from him, off the edge of the bed. John finally managed to look up. His gaze hardened. Finch had broken the rules. He had run a chain through the restraint’s buckles and put a small padlock on them. It was nothing, really, easy to break off, but Reese couldn’t reach anything with his free hand to break it with. He yanked hard, but of course the leather cuff was much too tight. He tried to kick, and the ankle cuff was too tight, too. He couldn’t get free. He yanked again, trying to break the bed frame. It barely budged.

“Finch!” he barked.

Harold was standing at the side of the bed, still naked, wearing his glasses, with the key in his hand. Reese lunged at him, but he was just beyond his reach. “We had an agreement, Finch,” he snarled. “Give me the key.”

“I am sorry,” Harold answered. He looked genuinely contrite, and a little frightened. “You’ll understand soon, I promise. I just need to be sure you don’t hurt yourself between now and three o’clock.” He gestured toward the clock. “You remember. Three o’clock. No matter how bad things seem, I promise you by three o’clock everything will be better. I _promise_.”

Which meant, John knew with horrible sudden clarity, that his lover was about to do something dangerous and probably bone stupid. “Raven!” he shouted. “Get me that key!”

She moved to Finch’s side, safely outside his reach, too. She’d put a robe on, one of the white terrycloth ones that the hotel provided. She hadn’t bothered to tie it, and her half-covered body was more enticing than her fully nude one had been. Almost. “This is cruel,” she said, to Finch.

“It’s the only way,” Finch answered sadly. “Half an hour, John. Less than that, now. Just don’t despair. Just trust me for that long.”

“God damn it, Harold, give me the key!” Reese lunged at him again, furious, desperate.

“I won’t watch this,” Raven announced. She walked into the bathroom and closed the door quietly.

John took a deep breath. “Harold,” he said, as calmly as he could, “Harold, please. Whatever you’re doing, don’t. We can talk about this. We can work it out. Whatever it is, Harold, I swear, we can get through it together. _Together,_ Harold. Please.”

Finch’s eyes filled with tears. He bent over and picked up a stack of folded towels. John hadn’t seen them before, but then, he hadn’t seen a lot of things. “Three o’clock, John,” Harold said. His voice shook. He cleared his throat. “I promise you, by three o’clock this will all be better. I swear it. On my love for you, John, I swear it.”

His voice and his words filled John with terror. “Harold …”

Harold held the pile of towels tight against his belly. He drew a long silver knife out from between the folds of the first one. Took one step closer to the bed. And stabbed the knife directly into his own heart.

He managed to yank the knife back out and toss it aside. Then he collapsed forward toward the edge of the bed.

John screamed as his lover fell. He grabbed him with his free hand, scrabbled desperately to drag him onto the bed. “Harold!” he yelled frantically. He yanked at the restraint, frantic to be free, to help him. “Harold!” And then, “Raven! Raven!”

She did not answer, though he knew she could hear him.

His hands ran over Harold’s chest. The wound was clean, deep. It did not bleed very much, because his heart had stopped the minute the knife pierced it. The towels fell out of his dead hands, but they’d absorbed most of what blood there was. Reese laughed bitterly, then sobbed. God forbid that fastidious Harold should leave a mess, even in this. He checked frantically for a pulse, for breathing. There was nothing.

He yanked at the restraints again. He knew now why Harold had done it. They kept Reese from stopping his suicide, and they kept him now from helping in any useful way. But there had to be something, somehow. Some way he could save his lover. He couldn’t live without Harold. Finch couldn’t be dead. Not like this, no so suddenly. Not by his own hand. It couldn’t be.

John threw his head back and screamed. If nothing else, that would bring help.

Except it wouldn’t, he realized suddenly. In all the time they’d been in the room, he had not heard a single airplane overhead. The airport hotel was meticulously, thoroughly soundproofed.

“Raven!” he shouted again. “Raven, you bitch, get out here and help me!”

Harold’s body was already beginning to cool. He seemed smaller in death, more fragile.

_No!_ Reese though furiously. He couldn’t be dead. Not like this. Not now. There had to be something he could do. It couldn’t just end like this. Something …

John Reese gathered his lover’s body close with his free hand and wept.

He heard the bathroom door open. When he opened his eyes, Raven was standing beside the bed again. She’s closed her robe, but her lips were still red and perfect. Reese swore at himself and drove the rising arousal from his mind. “Poor boy,” she murmured sweetly. “Poor boy.” 

“Help me,” he whispered. She was too far from the bed for him to reach her yet. But there was kindness in her eyes and voice. She could be lured closer. “Please help me. Help _him_.”

“There is no help for him,” Raven pronounced quietly. “And none is needed.” Her voice was oddly formal, and for the first time Reese detected an accent in her speech. He couldn’t match it to any that he knew. “Do you despair already?” she continued. “It is not yet three o’clock.”

Against his will, he lifted his head and looked at the clock. Two forty-seven. “What difference does it make?” he demanded. “What happens at three o’clock?”

She considered. “At three o’clock, if nothing else, I will give you the key.”

“It will be too late then!” Reese shouted. He thrashed, pulling at his restraints until his wrist and ankle were raw. Nothing gave. “Damn it, help me! I can still save him if you let me go right now!”

“Shhh, my poor boy. Hush now. Rest and wait, and do not despair just yet. I will stay with you.”

Reese gave another futile tug and the straps. Then he buried his face in Harold’s cool neck and wept again.

It could not end this way. _It could not end this way._

As soon as Raven released him, he decided, he would find the knife and kill himself.

That decision gave him more comfort than it should. He only had to endure this pain, then, this loss, for a few more minutes. And then he would be free, or gone, or with Harold, or alone.

Tears still slid down his face. But he had endured torture before. He closed his mind and felt nothing and waited.

The mattress shifted under him. He lifted his head and saw that Raven was sitting there, on the edge, on the far side of Harold’s body. He shot his hand out and grabbed her wrist. “The key!” he demanded.

She put her free hand into the pocket of her robe and came out with a small key. Reese had to release her to snatch it, but she didn’t try to evade him. She gave him the key. He squirmed onto his back and reached over his head, frantically working to get the restraint off. It was too late, he knew. Harold had been gone too long. But he could join him, wherever he’d gone. He could …

He worked the leather strap loose, dropped it to the bed, sat up to release his ankle.

Raven was stretched out next to Harold’s body, her hand idly stroking his growing erection.

“Get the fuck off him, you whore!” Reese barked. He lunged toward her, but of course he could not hurt her. She lifted her face and kissed him. Her tongue, her taste. They should taste like ashes to him now, and yet they were still as sweet.  Let this be the last kiss I taste, he thought. And then he changed his mind. The last kiss he wanted to taste was Harold’s …

His brain was fogging again. He was missing something.

She had no right to touch him. She had no right to have her hands on Harold’s body. It was profane. It was …

Reese snapped back, his eyes wide open.

_… her hand idly stroking his growing erection…_

Finch’s cock was stiff and upright in her talented hands now. Reese had seen erections on dead men before, but not like this. Not so soon, before rigor set in. Not pink and supple and …

He looked up. Raven’s black eyes smiled at him knowingly.

He glanced at the bedside clock. Two fifty-seven. Three minutes left. Three minutes until …

John let his eyes rest on Harold’s face. It was so peaceful in death. Calm, pale. But there was a hint of color in his cheeks still, on his lips. Almost as if he was …

He looked at the knife wound in the center of Finch’s chest. It had closed, was just an angry red scar now. It faded toward white while he watched.

Raven shifted, took the dead man’s cock in her mouth.

Finch took a loud, noisy breath. Then he took another one and opened his eyes.


	4. Chapter 4

Reese stared for one moment, and then he was on him, smothering him with kisses, bathing him with tears, hugging him, touching him, holding him. Kissing him all over again.

His relief, his joy, were easily twice as deep as his despair had been.

Finch said, “Ahhh!” against his mouth, and then his body convulsed and he said “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” as he came. He fell back into Reese arms and grinned up at him. “That,” he announced, to both of them, “is a damn fine way to come back to life.”

Raven sat up. “You,” she said pointedly, “are an asshole. And you,” she told John, “have every right to beat the shit out of him for that stunt.”

“He’s … not dead,” Reese said vaguely. He squeezed his lover in his arms. Finch was warm again, and he struggled a little against the embrace. But Reese was not going to let him go. Not ever. He was still dazed, stunned, confused. But Harold was alive in his arms.

“He _was_ dead,” Raven pointed out.

He was, Reese’s befuddled brain confirmed. He’d seen dead. He knew dead. Finch had been dead. Well and truly dead. “But … how … I don’t …”

“I am sorry, love,” Harold said sincerely. He groped for his glasses, put them on. “There was no other way to convince you.”

“You might have _tried_ some other way,” the woman said tartly. “You sadistic bastard.”

Reese might have been inclined to agree with her, if he’d been less overjoyed to have his lover back from the dead.

“I’m starving,” Finch announced very matter-of-factly. “Did you order yet?”

“Of course,” Raven answered, a bit archly.

Finally, bits of anger began to overcome Reese’s confusion. “What the hell is going on?” he demanded.

“A moment,” Harold answered cheerfully. “This whole dying thing, it rather plays havoc with the whole digestive system.” He left the bed, started toward the bathroom, then came back and briefly covered John’s mouth with his own. “I told you it would be alright.” He staggered to the bathroom.

“Harold!” Reese shouted after him. “What the hell?”

He looked back to the woman. Raven went to the closet and brought him another of the robes. It was too short for Reese, of course, but he put it on. A moment later there was a sharp knock on the door and a voice called, “Room Service!”

She opened the door and let the young man wheel in a heavily laden cart. While she signed the check, Harold came out of the bathroom in a robe of his own. Reese watched the young man. He barely noticed the men. His eyes were focused on the woman. His erection became immediately visible beneath his double-knit uniform pants.

_Poor boy_ , Reese thought smugly. He sat down at the small side table and reached for one of the trays. He was ravenous, too. Fortunately it looked like the woman had ordered enough to feed a battalion.

But Finch, newly not-dead Finch, was feeling generous. He approached the bellhop. “Tell me, Sean,” he read off the nametag, “how old are you?”

“Twenty-two,” the boy answered, in a high voice that sounded more like twelve. “Sir.”

“College student, I suppose?”

“Yes, sir.”

Harold nodded sagely. “And tell me this, Sean. Would you rather have a cash tip, or experience the most remarkable oral sex of your life?” He turned and gestured for Raven. When she joined him he moved behind her and slipped the robe off her shoulders, exposing her breasts to the young man.

The bellhop squeaked, dumbfounded.

“That’s what I thought.” Finch pushed the boy gently against the wall. Raven followed, dropped to her knees in front of him. The boy was wild-eyes, almost terrified. Harold grinned and joined John at the table.

Before he even pulled the chair out, the young man cried out and came. He groaned in pleasure and disappointment. But the woman was not about to let him be disappointed. She held his cock gently and lapped at it with her tongue. It quickly began to harden again.

Reese watched, fascinated. He couldn’t take his eyes away, even when Finch leaned to kiss him again. “She does have a rare gift, doesn’t she?” he said.

John blinked, looked up him. “She’s right. You are a sadistic son of a bitch. How did you do that?”

“That?” Harold teased, gesturing to the young man. “There’s no trick there. It’s simply biology. Mostly.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I do. And I am sorry. I’ll explain in a moment. You should try to eat something.”

Reese picked up a piece of toast and chewed it thoughtfully. He couldn’t stop watching the woman and the bellhop. From the look of fierce concentration on the young man’s face, he wasn’t going to last much longer his second time than he had his first. Raven’s hair was very shiny, very dark over the pale skin of her back. It brushed her heels where she knelt. John was seized with a sudden desire to lace his fingers through that silken beauty, to hold her and control her as she sucked on his cock …

“Eat,” Finch reminded him gently. Reese swallowed.

The bellhop came again, screaming, his fingernails clawing the wallpaper at his sides. Raven sat back a little, licked him clean, tucked his cock away and zipped his pants. As she rolled to her feet, Finch walked back over to them. He tucked a folded bill into the speechless young man’s pocket. “Now go away, don’t try to sneak back, and don’t tell anyone.” He opened the door and practically shoved him out, then closed it and set the privacy lock again.

The two of them came to the little table. Raven shrugged back into her robe. There were only two chairs, but she seemed perfectly content to perch on John’s knee. “You’re still an asshole,” she told Finch.

“Yes, dear,” he agreed, diving into the food.

While the woman ate, clearly uninterested in sex for the moment, Reese found himself out of her thrall and able to eat himself. He was starving, and exhausted. For a time there were only the sounds of silver and china and chewing. Finally, John managed to look at his partner again. “You were dead.”

“I was,” Finch agreed.

“And now you’re not.”

“Yes. I’m not.”

“You were _really_ dead. There wasn’t some zombie drug or …” Reese stopped. Of course there wasn’t. “You were really dead,” he repeated.

“I was dead,” Finch confirmed.

“So you … can’t die?”

“I can die. You just saw me die. But staying dead, not so much.”

“You can’t die permanently.”

“Correct. Well, no. There are certain conditions under which I can be actually, unconditionally dead.”

Reese chewed a strawberry and waited.

“Anything that injures the brain severely,” Finch said. “Or disrupts the brain’s communication with the rest of the body. So a head shot will kill me. Or decapitation. Or breaking my neck.”

“But …” Reese groped for the right words and decided there weren’t any. “But your neck _was_ broken.”

“Not badly enough to sever the spinal column.”

John gestured toward his partner’s chest. “And the wounds just heal.”

“Yes. At a substantially accelerated rate.”

“But then why the limp?”

Harold glanced down, picked up a sausage link. “These injuries occurred before my first … death.”

“Someone tried to kill you permanently the first time?”

“No. Well, yes, but they had no idea that breaking my neck would accomplish that.” He shook his head, indicating that he wasn’t giving up any more details about that incident. “Wounds that I’ve sustained since that first death had vanished, for all practical purposes.”

Reese sat back and considered. His hands strayed of their own accord to Raven’s waist. His thigh was nicely warm beneath her ass. “So a concussion …”

“Provided it’s not fatal immediately, would heal without incident in a few hours.”

John nodded.

“I still think you should take him out and beat the shit out of him for this,” Raven offered.

Reese leaned forward and kissed her, nuzzled her ear. “You may be right.” He looked to Finch. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Would you have believed me?”

“No.” John claimed the woman’s mouth again. She tasted like strawberries, and still irresistibly like herself. His cock began to fill yet again. “It could have been a tragedy, you know,” he told Harold, as an aside. “If I’d gotten lose before you came back, I would have killed myself with the same knife.”

“It would have had the same outcome,” his lover answered quietly.

John moved his mouth off her delectable lips and kissed down her chin, to her pale slender throat. His hands slid up from her waist to cradle her breasts. “Hmm?”

“You wouldn’t have stayed dead, either.”

Reese froze, his lips pressed to the uppermost curve of the most perfect breast in the universe. “I … what?”

Finch sighed. “Raven, beloved, would you excuse us?”

“No, no …” John protested.

She slid to her feet gracefully. “You should have told him all of this before.” She took a bunch of grapes off the tray and wandered off to the bathroom.

When she was out of sight, it was easier for John to concentrate, if not to accept what he’d just heard. “What did you say?”

Harold smiled gently, took his hand. “I love you, John. Do you really think I could send you out on all these missions if I wasn’t reasonably sure you’d come back to me?”

Reese stared. “You’re saying I’m …”

“Like me,” Harold nodded. “If you die, unless you get shot in the head or decapitated, you’ll revive.” He sat back. “And after the first time, after you end your original life, you’ll heal very quickly and you won’t get any older. Ever.”

“I won’t …” John stopped, because he couldn’t process any more. His brain simply stopped, shuddered to a halt like a passenger train with the emergency cord pulled. “I won’t … but …”

“You were worried yesterday about growing older. You don’t have to. You can stay just like this, just as strong and fast as you are today, for the rest of your life. Which could be a very long time.”

“I could …” Reese shook his head. “That’s impossible.”

Finch pulled his robe open and pointed to the pale white scar that had been a gaping knife wound an hour before. “Not impossible, John.”

“And you’re sure. That I’m like you.”

“I would not risk your life every day otherwise. I could not.”

John sat back. His thoughts were still coming slowly, though muck, but they were coming. “But then …have you always known?”

“Yes. Since before I hired you.” Harold shrugged. “I set out to save lives. I couldn’t very well risk killing the man I hired to do that for me.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Reese demanded. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

Finch looked genuinely contrite. “At first because I thought you’d find out for yourself, soon enough. And then, when we were lovers …” He paused. “I am sorry, John. I’ve been very selfish in this. I thought if I waited until you were older, a bit less attractive … that you’d be more inclined to stay with me, in the long run. That was wrong.”

“You’re damn right that was wrong.” John reared up and reached across the table, grabbed Finch by the back of the head and kissed him fiercely. “I love you, you idiot. I will never leave you.”

“Never is a very long time.” Finch smiled, wistful, pleased. “And it just got much, much longer.”

Reese sat back down. He picked up his coffee and drank deeply. “I’m still missing something.”

“Yes.” Finch nodded toward the bathroom. “Raven.”

“Raven. What’s she got to do with this?”

“She feeds on sexual energy,” Finch said carefully. “On life energy. As I told you, she can subsist for some time on casual encounters. Bellboys and blow jobs. But she is what she is, old and elemental. And she needs sometimes to feed fully.”

“To take all the energy.” Reese nodded to himself. “To take a life.”

“Like you, she does not particularly like killing. But she’s very, very good at it.” Finch considered. “For a time she sought out men who were dying anyhow, terminally ill men. But their waning energy was not enough to satisfy her. So she became intuitive over time, able to find men who were prone to suicide. That was better; it eased her guilt over taking their lives. But that approach had its own drawback. Namely, that if you provide a suicidal man with an hour or two of mind-bending sex, he may decide he has something to live for after all.”

“And then she found you,” Reese guessed suddenly.

Harold nodded. “After I was injured, after I’d lost Nathan and left Grace … she found me. And I was more than willing to be her victim.” He smiled a little. “In bed, sexually sated by an impossibly beautiful woman. As I’d wished. Except that then I woke up.” He nodded again. “And it was my good fortune to wake up with an impossibly beautiful woman who could tell me _why_ I was waking up again.” 

“She’s known others like you?”

“Yes. A few.”

“Are they still around?”

“I suppose so. I haven’t gone looking for them. I haven’t been undead that long, and I’ve been busy. Because, of course, if I was still going to be alive, I needed something to do.”

“A job,” Reese said quietly. “A purpose.”

“Yes. And a partner.” He lifted Reese’s hand and pressed his lips to his knuckles. “I didn’t expect to find a lover as well. Karma, I suppose. But when I told you that the Numbers haunted me, that was true. And when I knew I would have the time and the resources to help them … I had to try.”

“And you help Raven by letting her kill you.”

Harold nodded. “She gets what she needs, without guilt. And I get … well, you already know what I get.”

“To die in bed, sexually sated by an impossibly beautiful woman,” Reese repeated, smiling.

"Exactly." FInch stood and came around the table, bent and kissed Reese deeply. "'Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished, my love. But it's your choice, the timing and the means of ending your life. Or," he added, "you can simply go on are you are. Our project is almost certain to get you killed sooner or later."

John blinked up at him. The last piece clicked into place.

He looked toward the closed door to the bathroom. He could sense her there, and it stirred his blood, but it wasn’t overwhelming. It was visual, he realized; the core of her charm, her magic, whatever the hell it was, was visual. That’s why putting her hood up had kept him from fucking her against the wall of the elevator, though he knew now that she wouldn’t have minded. What had Finch said, something about not getting arrested again? That had been a simple matter of public decency, not desire. On either side.

To think that he’d been worried about forcing her.

With Raven out of sight, he could think. Really think. If what Harold told him was true, he could stop time right now, today. End his life, come back to it, and never grow a day older. Never lose another step. Never slow down. Never have to wait for weeks while wounds healed. He could go on helping the Numbers forever, perhaps. Or until he caught a head shot.

He could be with Harold forever. Or until he caught a head shot.

His simmering fears about growing older could be put to rest. Here. Today.

Or tomorrow, or the next day, or next week. Or, as Harold said, at some time in the future when some Number got him killed. Which was inevitable, sooner or later.

He would not be younger or faster or stronger tomorrow or the next day or next week.

Today. Yes. Today. If what Harold told him was true, if he would come back …

Did he trust Harold? With his life?

He didn’t even have to think about that. He knew. He trusted him absolutely. And Harold had no reason to lie about this. He had seen the knife pierce Finch’s heart. He had held his lover’s cooling corpse in his arms. He knew it was all true.

Today. Yes. Today.

And only the method remained.

His gaze traveled to the bloody towel on the floor beside the bed. Harold had planned well; it had caught nearly all the blood from his suicide. There weren’t enough stains on the sheets to cause any alarm with the hotel maids. But just as well they weren’t at the Coronet anyhow.

They’d have had to fire the bellhop, for one thing.

He didn’t have a gun. But the knife was still here, somewhere. That would be quick, clean. He could do it himself, or Harold would help him. Or else they could go back to the library and get a gun. He’d always figured he’d die with a bullet in him. It seemed appropriate. Either would be fast, fairly painless if he did it right.

Or else there was the impossibly beautiful woman.

He looked at Harold. His lover was watching him with a frankly speculative expression. “Does it hurt?” he asked.

“No.”

“Not at all?”

“Not at all. I highly recommend it.”

Reese took a deep breath and stood up. “Well. If you say so.” He took Harold in his arms and kissed him deeply.

“You’re sure?”

“I’m not,” John admitted, “but you are. And I trust you with my life.”

Harold smiled, nodded reassuringly. “You won’t regret it.”

“Let’s do this.”

 ***

They didn’t make it back to the bed for a while. Reese tapped on the bathroom door. Raven came out and kissed him and said, “Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

She pushed him against the wall, roughly where the bellhop had stood. Harold peeled the robe off her shoulders again. She dropped to her knees, and John buried his hands in her silky black hair, and she sucked his cock until his knees buckled. He lost count of how many times he came. His erection simply did not subside, and Raven barely paused, did not stop until he could not stand upright. Then he leaned on Harold and on her, and they moved to the bed.

Harold was whimpering with desire by then; it was impossible to be in the room with her without wanting her. He stretched out on the bed and Raven lay down and sucked him off, too. Reese grabbed her legs and dragged her close, then finger-fucked her until she screamed with her mouth full of Harold’s cock. When the genius was satisfied — for the moment — she climbed onto Reese’s lap and took his cock deep inside her. He rolled them and drove into her, fucked her hard and deep until she came and then he came, and then he stayed with her and did it again, and then his legs gave out.

This time she rolled them over, without letting his temporarily-flaccid dick slip out. She straddled his hips and waited. “I don’t think …” he tried to say.

“Still want to do this?” she asked cheerfully.

“Yes,” Reese panted. “I just don’t think I can go any more.”

“Leave that to me.” She did not move for a moment. Instead, she reached over and took Harold’s cock in her hand. He moaned, scooted closer, sat upright against the headboard next to John’s head. She worked him slowly, almost casually. Her body swayed over Reese’s trapped member, and impossibly it began to harden yet again. But her attention remained on Finch for the moment. John reached up and wrapped his hand over hers. He didn’t try to guide or help; he simply went along for the ride as she expertly jacked off his lover. When Finch’s sperm spurted over them, John took his hand away and licked it. It was comforting, familiar.

He felt as if he were floating, as if he were coming detached from the world.

Harold was right. It didn’t hurt.

Raven moved her hips in a slow circle. His cock sprang to attention again. His hips began to move of their own violation. “I can’t,” he panted. “I can’t …”

Harold kissed his cheek, nuzzled his ear. “It’s alright, John. You’re nearly there.” He felt scratchy kisses on his temple, his hair. Finch’s sure hands stroked his hair, soothed him. Lips nibbled at his neck. Covered his lips. His beloved’s tongue roamed his mouth. It was so familiar, so safe. His lover. His lover. He sighed, contented.

Raven’s pussy grabbed at him as she came, and he came with her. She rode him, milked him. His hips jerked uncontrollably. His whole body spasmed, on the verge on cramping. He thrust wildly, erratically. Raven stayed with him, squeezing him, wringing him out. It stopped for a moment, and then he was hard and thrusting again. Coming again. It became a slow, never-ending climax.

He could actually feel himself separating from his body. It did not hurt. It felt perfect. Peaceful.

“Yes,” Harold murmured against his ear. “Let yourself go, John. It’s alright. I’ll be right here when you get back.”

Reese tried to speak, but his words were already gone. The best he could manage was a noise. It sounded happy in his ears. He hoped Harold heard it that way. He was happy. He was blissful.

Harold had been right. This was the perfect way to die.

He came, and he came, and he came. And then he exhaled softly and died.

 ***

When he woke, it was to the sensation of a mouth on his cock again.

Reese took a deep breath. That took some effort. The next breath came easier.

The tongue ran up his shaft, swirled firmly around the base of the crown, tapped against his opening. Then the whole mouth covered him again.

Rough whiskers brushed against his thighs. John groaned, not in protest. He dropped his hand onto Harold’s head, traced his fingers through the familiar too-soft spikes of his hair. Harold’s hand gripped his hip, the familiar pressure of his fingertips welcome and wondrous. “Welcome back, John,” he muttered, letting the hard edge of his teeth press lightly against the crown of John’s cock.

“Good to be back,” John answered.

Harold’s mouth plunged downward again. Heat and suction and motion. Tongue and teeth and passionate enthusiasm. His lover’s touch and attention. _This is worth living for._

He cried out, and he came.

Harold slid up along his body and kissed his mouth. Reese held him, let the kiss linger, slow. He loved kissing with Harold, more than he had loved anything in his life. “Love you,” he murmured. “I love you.”

“I love you, John,” Harold answered. “How do you feel?”

“I don’t know.” He cradled his lover’s head on his chest and thought about it. “Fresh, somehow. Like I’ve slept for days.” He lifted his head and glanced at the clock. It was just after seven o’clock. There was still light peeking around the edges of the hotel’s curtains. “Where’s Raven?”

“In the shower.”

“She okay?”

“She’s glutted,” Finch reported. “Very satisfied.”

“Ahh.” Reese traced his fingers again through his lover’s hair. “Are you okay?”

Finch nodded slightly against his chest. “It’s a bit disconcerting. Watching you die. Holding your body in my arms.”

“I know.” Reese chuckled. “At least you knew I was coming back.”

“I am sorry,” Finch said again. “I’ll make it up to you.”

“I think you just did.”

They rested quietly for a time.

Raven came out of the bathroom, trailing a cloud of steam behind her. Reese shifted, lifted his head to look at her. She looked very different. Her skin was no longer stark white; while it would have been a stretch to call her tan, she was at least standard NYC-late-winter-toned. Her hair was shorter, lighter, braided down her back. Her cheeks were pink, her lips paler. Her ears didn’t even seem to be gently pointed any more.

Though she was naked, John’s exhausted cock did not stir.

“What did you do?” he asked.

“Glamour,” she answered simply. She picked up her dress and slipped it on, fastened it at her waist.

“She couldn’t walk the street looking like she did before,” Finch said sleepily. “She’d start a riot.”

“Or an orgy,” Reese agreed. She was still quite pretty, but nothing about her suggested the smoldering exotic creature he’d spent the afternoon with. “Is this the real you, or is the other?”

She smiled briefly. “The other. This is just a disguise.”

“It’s a good one.”

She came to the side of the bed and sat down, stroked John’s hair. “Alright now?” she asked gently.

“Yes.”

“Thank you.”

“Thank _you_ ,” he returned. “You’re not staying?”

“No. But Harold has my number.”

“And you have ours,” Harold said. “Call us any time.”

“We’d love to see you again,” John added.

She bent and kissed them on the lips, first Harold and then John. “I will. But right now I couldn’t eat another bite.” She stood up, picked up her cloak and her bag from the closet, and walked out.

The door closed softly behind her. John settled further down on the bed, shifted his arms to make sure Harold was comfortable. He was slaked. Deeply contented. He didn’t plan on moving for a while.

“So,” Harold said finally. “Now you know my secret.”

“One of your secrets,” John corrected gently.

“The rest are all rather minor by comparison.”

John ran his hand over his back lightly, feeling his lover’s soft, sparse pelt under his fingertips. “You were right, you know. At the beginning.”

“Hmmm?”

“You said we would probably both end up dead. Really dead.”

Harold chuckled softly.

“I thought it was a warning,” Reese continued. “I didn’t realize it was a promise.”

Finch looked up at him. “I couldn’t have begun to explain this.”

“I know.” John drew him closer. “I know.”

They were going to be together. They were going to continue to help the Numbers. John was not going to get older, or slower, or weaker. Neither was Finch. John was going to worry a lot less about his partner’s physical safety from here on out. Except for the head shot. The head shot could still kill them. Or a psycho with a long sword. But for the most part, they were invincible. Really, truly invincible.

Finch has said they were going to die, and they had. John hadn’t known it was a promise. Harold had known it was. And Harold had never lied to him.

Reese let his eyes drift closed, safe in the knowledge that he would wake up again with Harold beside him. Forever.

 The end.


End file.
